When I Leave

by Ancient Campfire

Rating: everyone
Tags: Human, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Original Character, Adventure, Slice of Life
Length: 4997

A young human recalls his dreams of Equestria, and longs to return to the land that only he knows is real.

As a child, Christopher begins to dream of Equestria, and is captivated by the gleaming city of Canterlot, which seems to elude him every night. Twenty years later, the dreams return and he becomes obsessed with his experiences. Set in a world where MLP doesn't exist as show or franchise, but the MLP universe is real. Very much inspired by the short story "Celephaïs" by H. P. Lovecraft.

Published 2022-05-04 22:10:01 UTC
Last updated 2022-05-04 22:10:01 UTC

Prologue

It was in a dream that Christopher first saw the city. Warm currents carried his body through the air, as if he could fly. A rosy expanse of clouds, painted over with beams of sunset, drifted around him, clouds so close he could have reached out to gather them up and feel the water condense on his hands. Beneath him were hills of rolling green, a landscape dotted by verdant trees and quaint houses. Figures moved across stone pathways, and farther along his line of sight were roads that trailed across the earth to far away places. These momentary, though peaceful, sights of an idyllic realm were peripheral to the towers of a grand city in the greater distance. Towers of ivory, accented with golden brass bands and topped by violet spires, which stood sentinel before a sea of dusk, all resting on the western face of a slumbering cone of snow-capped rock. At such a distance the earth itself seemed to dissolve at the horizon into the bed of starlight, giving the fanciful illusion that the city floated along the wind, just as he did.

The dream seemed to beckon him, and the howling of the high-altitude breeze swirled in strange ways and whispered indistinctly in his ears. All of the details and peripheral phenomena of the world around him fell out of focus. Only the distant glitter of that weightless city was worth his attention.

As soon as those towers finally revealed their peaks through the cloud cover, Christopher awoke with a start, finding himself not in the land of wondrous castles, forests and fields, but within a clearing in the woods behind his home, the same he has known for the first eight years of his life, by the moonlit pond.

***

Far beneath where he had soared, the town of Ponyville had averted a crisis. Nightmare Moon had returned to bring forth eternal night, but six ponies, the Elements of Harmony, restored the balance of the heavens and reunited the once-banished Princess Luna with her sister. The return of the alicorn coregency had brought about a change in places very far from Equestria, so far indeed that only one, seemingly beyond the realms of magic, ever knew of it.

He had been wandering the woods behind his childhood home. There was a small pond of cattails and lilies, mossy spheres of stone, and a trickle of water from the deeper woods which steadily filled the pond as another stream on its far side carried away the overflow. One night he’d been listening to the song of cicadas and crickets and the sway of leaves. The watchful moon, reflected and distorted by the traces of ripples on the water, kept his attention for some time.

He almost missed it; there was a change in its face, subtle enough that he could have passed it off as imagination or some consequence of the dancing water. It filled Christopher's mind with wonder and curiosity, and the hairs on his neck and forearms stood. The wind held its breath and the singing of the night life was halted. The surface of the pond was motionless. Nothing happened for nearly a minute, and he dared not breathe, not even blink, lest his interruption somehow cause the moment to evaporate.

After a moment, the woods slowly reconstituted themselves, and the familiar sounds and sensations played again as if they hadn’t left. Christopher was spellbound. For the rest of the evening this experience occupied his thoughts until sleep took hold and he was transported to the beautiful and strange land of Equestria for the first time.

***

The nightly escapes from reality would continue over that summer, each dream as vivid and captivating as the first. The more time he spent sailing on the aromatic winds above Ponyville, the more he would fall in love with the lively colors of the orchards, and the distant chatter of birds and ponies that went about their business. One night he found himself to have control over where he flew, and finally settled on a grassy hill. To his surprise, four indigo hooves extended from his body, and two feathery wings graced his frame. He was a pegasus, not unlike the ponies he'd seen walking about and cutting across the skies not far from him.

As the summer carried on, he became more familiar with the town itself, and the ponies who lived there. There were other pegasus ponies who welcomed him as if he'd been born and raised under their own roof. There were also unicorns, who performed magic as part of their daily life. Everything was so fantastic as to be overwhelming to someone from such a comparatively mundane world. There were ponies without a horn or wings, but their strength and cultivation was evident wherever he turned. Flowers of all kinds that enchanted the senses and orchards of brilliant apples that became the horizon.

He'd learned the names of some ponies, and they'd told him everything he wanted to know. The role and structure of unicorn magic, the ageless agricultural experience of the earth ponies, as he'd learn to call them, and the fundamentals of pegasus flight. Inevitably, his attention would be drawn toward the irresistible opal gleam on that distant mountain. When he could finally speak the name of that divine abode, having asked several ponies on the street, his quest would supersede even the greatest wishes of any boy his age, whether awake or dreaming. He must feel those smooth stone streets beneath his hooves, the chilled breath down the face of the imposing rock, the radiance of the morning rays as it played against the minarets. All was nothing if not that city.

Canterlot.

Without exception, each dream was a winding road which inexorably led him there. Even the wayward breeze carried him toward the mountain. But it was always out of reach. He would fly for hours, always waking up before he could make out any more details. It was as if it sought to escape him, not ready or willing to reveal to him some secret truth of his desire. Once he flew along the train from Ponyville and slipped into one of the open windows of a train car, only to find the tracks extend themselves eternally forward, leading nowhere. Another night led him to the Ponyville library, where he was allowed to peer through the telescope. The brilliance of the masonry and the gigantic, imposing gateway were all he could make out before the sun of his own world would tear him away yet again. His final dreamtime trip to Equestria would allow him closer than ever before.

It was nearing dusk. There was a pony named Cherry Berry tending to a large air balloon, untying the ropes securing it to stakes in the ground. He’d asked if she was headed to Canterlot, and to his fortune, she was indeed going to sail through the heavens to the alluring city. Though he had no money, she’d heard his pleas to see the city for himself, and her heart went out to this poor fellow who seemingly wanted nothing more than to be blessed with a chance to finally step through the impervious gates that have taunted him for weeks. And so they lifted off, rising above the scattered evening billows. Moonbeams washed over the basket of the two ponies, gently illuminating the sleeping plains and woodlands below.

Higher they ascended, drifting lazily with the mild northward breeze. In the distance, shimmering and twinkling like the vault of stars above, stood the unsurpassed beauty of Canterlot. The constellations and asterisms themselves bow to the true majesty of the firmament, the house of power which commands the spheres and their destinies. Christopher had almost forgotten in his reverence that he was nearing the city, and yet the occult forces of his dreams had not snatched him away. Cherry Berry had told him their journey was coming to an end; soon they would be landing and she would not leave until tomorrow. As the final stray cerulean clouds dissolved against the drifting balloon, and the flickering sconces on the ramparts could be spied through the mist, there came a sudden and violent burst of sound. Cherry Berry gasped in surprise. Christopher’s field of vision dissolved into blackness, and he awoke in his room.

***

That summer came to an end. Christopher's family moved across town, and the halcyon dreams, just as suddenly as they had come to dwell in his mind, left him entirely. All of his subsequent nocturnal endeavors were as dull and prosaic as the experiences which bookended them. The memories of his pegasus body and experiences faded with time, preserved only in drawings and short stories he'd written for school or for himself. He would not see the Equestrian paradise, and therefore Canterlot, for many years. Life had moved on, and him along with it. But not unlike the waves and currents of his own world, those of the mind would, unbeknownst to him, lead him closer still toward his dormant, elusive ambition.

Author's Note

Haven't written any fan fiction in a long time, pardon the rust. The brevity of the prologue is intentional; the meat of the story is in the upcoming chapters. Going to try and flesh it out properly :twilightblush: Hopefully the implied dialogue isn't too strange, but I thought it fit the fleeting and transient nature of a childhood dream.

Chapter 1

Growing up, adulthood had always been in the back of his mind, something to be understood only by experience. The distinction between who he was and who he would become was a barrier one must approach at a fixed pace, and then overcome involuntarily. When he saw his maturity ahead of him, he seemed to crawl toward it. On most days he ignored it. There were adventures yet to undertake, friends to make. Adults had no time for it, or at least his parents didn’t. It seemed stressful and time consuming. Could he still daydream? Were those days going to disappear?

On other days, however, he was eager to experience new responsibilities, but more importantly, more freedoms. He was shackled to the schoolhouse, with spectacled birds pecking away at him day by day until they had their fill. But when his trials were done, what was next? The pathway to this milestone was paved at birth. He was dragged across the timeline of life yet again by his master. Whatever he was flying toward, he must choose. Perhaps that was the entailment of those new responsibilities and freedoms, which were the summit of his ardor. In retrospect, it wasn’t so much that he was flying, but falling, bracing for a high velocity impact into his future self.

But there were moments of weightlessness. The occasional fluttering of the curtains behind him, when the distinct warmth of an Equestrian sunray shone through, peering down into an inactive, sealed chamber of himself. On rare, particularly beautiful days, something would stir within Chris. A longing stare into the sky would become a daydream, and a daydream would carry his thoughts to an uncharted island of equine memories. One sunny afternoon, when he was fifteen, he’d gone to the beach with his friends. Nothing made him happier than losing track of time with friends.

“Hey Chris, pass the ball already!”

Chris extended his arms and spiked the giant beach ball to his friend Marzy.

The two of them had met in first grade, sharing an interest in the outdoors. It only took a few weekends at the playground for them to become attached to one another. Along with them was Ben, whose parents had agreed to take them along for a one-day vacation. He’d met Chris a few years before, and the trio would save no free time for themselves.

Ben leapt to catch the errant inflatable and landed face-first in wet sand.

“Augh! It got in my mouth!”, he cried, spitting out the grainy mixture.

Chris and Marzy laughed, and soon Ben joined in as well. The enjoyment of that day was not vulnerable to a harmless fall. In fact it seemed that nothing could ruin such a perfect getaway for these three. Golden days like these are the kind to reflect upon when you’re older, a nostalgic trophy that would gather no patina, nor accumulate dust; days when adulthood was pushed away, for just a little bit longer. But the conjunction of circumstances on that afternoon brought to the forefront of Chris’ mind a castaway memory.

Perhaps it was that childlike euphoria they shared. They often had good times, but this experience was special; a rare opportunity to whittle away the summertime in the most worthwhile fashion. It mirrored those flawless flights over the green seas of Ponyville he’d long forgotten, built over by a new happiness. Whether those would be built over still by future times was a question he’d either ignored or never wondered.

But maybe it wasn’t the feeling he experienced. Maybe it was the external factors, like the angle of the beams which punctured the roof of bluish gray and traced over the lapping waves.

Chris was sitting on a short ledge above the water, and smiled as his eyes slowly closed, taking in all of the tranquil elements around him.

Or maybe it was the warm wind which combed through his mane, and brushed over his coat and wings. Or could it be the scent of countless baked apple goods, wafted up to him as he floated across the breathing winds above the market stalls in the town square? He fluttered down to the middle of the square, invited by the savory bouquet of pies, fritters, and of course the baskets of fresh apples. Suddenly he’d never been so hungry in his whole life, as if everything he’d eaten before now was in preparation to enjoy the cuisine fit for the gods.

He turned to the stall which held the heavenly spread. The orange mare tending to the goods looked up at him and grinned enthusiastically.

“Howdy! Care for some delicious apple goods, courtesy o’ Sweet Apple Acres? First bite’s on me t’day!”

She held out an apple muffin in her hoof, a light wisp of steam rising from the warm treat. How could he say no? He eagerly took the muffin in both hooves, and took a large bite. Only his sense of wonder had restrained him from swallowing it whole. The flavor wa-

A spray of seawater had pulled him from the reverie. Chris’ mind returned to the beach, and his eyes shot open. He regretted this immediately as salt burned and blurred his vision. He yelped and fell backwards into the sand.

“Are you alright?” Ben ran over to him and helped him to his feet.

“You probably should’ve seen that spindrift coming. The waves are getting kinda choppy now that there’s a storm coming in. You’re missing out on the bonfire, come on.”

Chris rubbed his eyes until he could see again, and sure enough, the water was sloshing around and kicking up the ledges around him. He walked with Ben over to the roasting logs.

He frowned. There was something so familiar about the whole experience, and it bothered him. He wouldn’t just make up something so specific and complete, so bizarre and unlike his life. Why was it vivid, like a dream? The smallest details were as real as the whining crackles and the red-orange curls of bark of the burning wood in front of him. The breeze across his fur and through his wings… How does the mind come up with something like that, so unrelated to having a human body? But it has to be some invention, pure fancy. What other explanation could even be entertained? He decided not to dwell on it any longer. After all, he can think of it tomorrow, but he goes home tonight.

***

Thirteen years afterwards, another set of seemingly innocuous circumstances would converge to awaken Chris to the subconscious pinnacle of his wanderlust. He’d heard about a stargazing event at the observatory on the outskirts of the city. A dazzling meteor shower on a cool spring evening, which was exactly the kind of getaway from his full-time job he’d been looking for. It was a shame his friends couldn’t come along, but then again, he’d lied to his own manager about catching an imaginary sickness.

A light southern breeze had teased at the corners of his blanket, spread out on a low hill beneath a breathtaking expanse of twinkling points. Laying on his back, his vision was encompassed by the dome of moonless night, so that only the most peripheral and obscured meteoric traces were missed. Even the tree line was mostly behind him, so that it appeared to any onlooker that the blanket of darkness that covered the plains in each direction melted into a dusty blue gradient. There were a handful of other stargazers and amateur astronomers out in the same field, but everyone had been modestly spread out. For that, he was thankful. Watching the shower of blue-white arcs zip and scratch over the congregation of starlight was exciting, but in the same way that an excellent read was exciting. It didn’t involve sensory stimulation or physical exertion. You didn’t really have to do anything else but passively enjoy what was in front of you.

Chris let the evening hours pass by with no concern for anything else in the world. And there were plentiful shooting stars to keep any encroaching sense of impatience or boredom at bay. In fact he’d stopped counting after about thirty. It kept the mind too focused on a task, instead of being in the moment. There was an especially stunning cascade of meteors that fell at one point, emanating from a singular direction in space. At this moment the wind had picked up a bit, and it was by pure chance that he’d been looking somewhat lower toward the horizon in front of him, rather than straight above like he’d spent most of the evening.

There was a shift in the atmosphere, like the temperature had suddenly dropped. He’d no longer heard the whisper of blowing grass and his fluttering blanket. The dark tree line he was certain he’d turned from was back again, reshaping the middle distance. What startled him the most was the flickering of one meteor that would not move, nor vanish. When he’d gotten up to get a closer look (though he knew that any distance he could reasonably cross would never improve his vantage point), he’d fallen from the cloud he only realized too late that he’d been resting on. Hooves flailed in front of his sight, and latent instinct and experience had switched on faster than he could collect his thoughts. With only a few dozen feet between him and the sleeping homes of Ponyville residents, he’d corrected his course and swept up into the air. Had anyone on that hill been looking in his direction at this point, they’d assumed someone had left their picnic blanket out on their way home.

Chris was in Equestria, and not on Earth.

***

The feeling of flight is not something he’d assumed could be forgettable to him. Yet it took a supernatural occurrence like this to bring the memories back. There was no simulation like this back home. Even with special equipment and technology, it was always a kind of façade. You knew you weren’t really flying. But right now, he had the ultimate flight equipment.
Wings. Wings which he could naturally control with his body, with a high degree of accuracy. The most subtle tension and flexion of the network of the muscles would alter his flight path, with no less complexity than that of his hands, which, now that he thought about it, he was not sure he still had.

Flying upwards, he saw that the strange, perpetual glitter on the horizon was still there. It aroused great curiosity in him. Though the breeze worked against him, he flew in the direction of the light. A new and different sensation was creeping across his brain and tingling across his back. Something like anxiety, or déjà vu. It felt like a precursor to something significant, like a portent. At this point the thought occurred to him that he’d probably fallen asleep on the hill while stargazing. He must be dreaming, because becoming a pegasus doesn’t happen for any other reason. After all, dreams don’t have to make sense while you’re in them.

But it doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t exactly feel wrong, either. Only different. If it’s a dream, even a vivid dream, how could he put it to the test? Would he remember any of it when he woke up? And why does it even matter right now? What could possibly be done if he really did become a pegasus for no apparent reason? Whatever causal power that could make such bold declarations against nature and the physical world had chosen him as its new test subject, and he had little to say in protest. Indeed, the exhilarating sensations he’d been feeling since he’d taken flight had left his body and mind pitted against one another in a marathon. Why wake up now?

All this time he was focused on his train of thought, and when the glint in the distance had caught his eye again, he’d made more progress toward investigating it than expected. Though nightfall had long descended, the ambience of starlight was enough to navigate between the occasional plumes of cloudstuff. That electric trepidation had become a full-body sensory endurance test. It was as if his heart was iron and the advancing peak was a colossal magnet. The particularity of the whole scene was almost eerie to him. Though he didn’t quite feel in danger, there was a palpable fear bubbling below the surface.

Chris realized that he had been here before. He’d seen that same flicker on the mountainside. He’d flown through the same darkness, flapping the same pegasus wings, above the same starlit landscape. In fact these were distant childhood memories, unearthed by some apparent accident of psychology and circumstance. They were the rudimentary points in a haze, but clear enough that the contact points between past and present could bridge together. Everything he was feeling up to this point had heightened. His heart began to race, as did his wings and he flew faster toward his target. The starry eye winked and taunted him with forbidden knowledge of his own innermost desires, eternally resting on the vanishing point of his vision.

Suddenly, the horizon was dark. Some interloper had stolen his fantasy away into the midnight. He dared not turn around lest he lose bearing on the direction. Was it a cloud?

He stopped flying forward, ascending vertically about twenty feet. The obscurity remained. Moving to his right, and the shining point emerged out of nothingness again. Something was in front of him. Had there been a moon above, he’d have seen it sooner. It had to be a cloud. What else would be up here?

After a moment of hesitant flight, a round, dark mass came into view. It was an air balloon, and a pony appeared to be in its basket. It was coming back to him now.

He knew this balloon, and he knew this pony. They’d met in Ponyville once before. Cherry Berry, right? As he approached the basket, he noticed the pony was looking in the direction of the glittering dot he’d been so fixated upon. She’d not heard or noticed him coming up from behind. Trying not to frighten her, Chris flapped his wings in a loud, exaggerated fashion, but from such a distance that it wouldn’t be so sudden.

Her ears perked, and she swiveled around to see him hovering on the far side of the balloon at eye level with her. At first, Cherry Berry was surprised, and then her expression became one of relief.

“Oh! It’s you! I was wondering what happened to you last night. There was a sound, and you’d left the basket. Normally I’d have panicked if somepony was suddenly unaccounted for on a trip, but you’re a pegasus, after all. And since you were so excited to see the city, I figured you couldn’t wait and hopped out early!”

What did she mean by last night? It felt like so long ago that he’d been here. It had to have been years. He did remember a balloon ride. What city was she talking about?

“Um, oh yeah. I remember it like it was yesterday. Which, it was, of course. I think.” He felt the nerves tensing up in him again, so he switched the topic. “So, are you out here watching the stars?”

She smiled brightly. “Yes, I love to stargaze in the balloon. There’s something amazing about it when you’re so high up. It really adds to the whole experience. By the way, what did you think of Canterlot?”

The name echoed in his head, dancing on top of whatever train of thought he’d previously set up for the conversation like rain on a wet canvas.

Canterlot.

In a rush, those adventures of his youth were recalled. Hours of sightseeing and flying, idly chatting with ponies, spending real time that had no business being only a phantasm of sleep. He remembered the longing, the yearning to be granted passage into the gilded keep. And he was so close. Could he reach it now? Were things different than before?

“Are you alright there?” Cherry’s head was tilted, wearing a face of mild concern.

Chris caught himself and blushed. “Y-yeah! I’m fine. You know I didn’t get to see the city myself. I left because I remembered… I left the TV on at home.” He doubted she’d ever heard of television, but he couldn’t possibly explain to her that he’s not really a pony, or at least not only a pony. It’s not like he understood all of this himself anyways.

There was a dull, abstract weight pulling somewhere in his body, like something was insistent on getting his attention. The sensation quickly elevated and became intense, like a pounding headache. Sweat trickled from his forehead and neck. A previously nonexistent vertigo twisted inside his stomach. In a panic, he tried to fly toward the basket.

Her confusion only grew, and she walked over to his side of the basket. “What’s a teevee? Are you sure you’re fine?”

“Uhm… I… ”

The periphery of his vision rapidly began to darken, and his wings became heavier and he felt like he was trying to fly while underwater. Lethargy took control of his entire body, and before he could figure out what to say, he blacked out and fell forward, landing in an exhausted crumple in front of Cherry’s hooves.

***

Chris awoke with a gasp, feeling drenched and jittery with adrenaline fueling his accelerated heart. An elderly man, who had been kneeling over him, stepped back in surprise.

“Afternoon, sonny. Mind telling me why, and how, you were sleeping on the ground in the rain?”

He helped Chris to his feet, and the umbrella the man was holding, in a kind though futile gesture, covered the both of them. Water poured from his clothes, and he thought of what he could say in response to making a complete fool of himself.

“Thanks for helping me up. I must’ve had a few too many last night or something. Anyways, I have to get going. I work at 11am. Wait, did you say afternoon?”

As the two walked to the parking lot, the older man said, “It’s about a quarter to five o’ clock now. Better think of something more responsible to tell your boss than a hangover. You take care now.”

The color drained from Chris’ face. He’s six hours late to work! Worse still, he’d already lied and skipped work last night. This wasn’t going to end well.

The man walked in his own direction after leaving Chris to get into his car.

“Well, having a dream about being a pony sure isn’t going to do me any favors,” he said to himself. He’d never slept so long in his entire life. How did that happen?

As he drove home, he decided that writing down everything that he could remember from last night’s meteor shower up until waking up was a good starting point. There must be some condition, or psychology that could explain what it was all about. Why would he be so fixated on this kind of dream that it would happen multiple times and years apart? Why ponies, of all things? Why would he be obsessed with some castle as a child, and even now? Could it be something more than a dream, like some kind of spiritual experience? Was there some forgotten, transformative moment that had escaped his recollection?

As his mind raced, he felt his phone vibrate in his pants pocket. Thankfully, a good waterproof case had prevented any kind of misfortune. Chris checked his notifications and saw what he knew he should’ve expected, but nevertheless made him grit his teeth and hiss in discomfort.

7 (seven) missed calls:

Manager - 9:08 PM
Manager - 9:12 PM
Manager - 9:39 AM
Manager - 10:10 AM
Manager - 10:52 AM
Manager - 2:46 PM
Boss - 3:33 PM

Dialing his manager first, he sighed. He hoped they wouldn’t let him go for a stunt like this.

“I wish I hadn’t woken up yet. Equestria was a much better place.”

Author's Note

Writing scenes of dialogue and actually pacing out a moment feels much better and more natural to keep the story flowing more consistently. Plus it means the story isn't 99% the reader being stuck in Chris' head! It's only like, 75% now. It's readable. :unsuresweetie: